Prosecutors today built a compelling case against an itinerant fruit picker charged with starting a fire at an Australian hostel that killed 15 young travellers, including seven Britons.

Prosecutors today built a compelling case against an itinerant fruit picker charged with starting a fire at an Australian hostel that killed 15 young travellers, including seven Britons.

The court in Brisbane was told Robert Paul Long had confessed to the crime when he was captured and had written suicide notes.

Prosecutor David Meredith said Long, who had lived at the Palace Backpackers Hostel for two months but left a week before the fire, made the confession to two police officers, one of whom suffered minor injuries when he was knifed in the jaw by Long.

"I'm dying, I started that fire," Meredith said police officers were told by Long when he was captured in a park at Howard, Queensland, on June 28, 2000.

Long, 38, has pleaded not guilty.

As well as the seven Britons, the fire at the 100-year-old building in nearby Childers also killed three backpackers from Australia, two from the Netherlands and one each from Ireland, South Korea and Japan.

Meredith described Long as a deeply disturbed man who had told some backpackers at the hostel that he was dying from lung cancer, had only two months to live and had left two suicide notes in the days leading up to the June 23 blaze.

The prosecutor also said the jury would hear from a witness who saw Long with a brown bottle in his hand, pouring liquid into a rubbish bin.

Long faces life in prison if he is found guilty of the one arson charge and two charges of murder.